A Cautionary Tail for Australian film success

A crowd-funded short film about a girl born with a tail could be the latest success story from an Australian animated short, as its premiere at the Flickerfest short film festival highlighted.

Transcript

LEIGH SALES: Australia has produced some amazing success stories in the world of animated short films.

Adam Elliot's Harvie Krumpet and Shaun Tan's The Lost Thing both won Academy Awards.

Now, big names like Cate Blanchett, David Wenham, and Barry Otto have lent their voices to a new animation that's been able to get off its feet through so-called "crowd funding" - that's when fans donate money to help get a project made.

Monique Schafter uncovered the story behind the film, A Cautionary Tail.

(Excerpt from A Cautionary Tail)

FILM NARRATOR: Right where her back joined with her bum, they spied something that sent them numb.

A small protuberance or lump projecting from their daughter's rump.

ERICA HARRISON: The film is about a little girl who is born with a little lump on the top of her bum and as she grows into a toddler it grows into a beautiful tail that expresses her emotions.

MONIQUE SCHAFTER: A Cautionary Tail is a new Australian animated short film penned by Bondi local Erica Harrison. Inspired by Roald Dahl's dark funny fairytales, the story is delivered entirely in rhyming verse.

(Excerpt from A Cautionary Tail)

FILM NARRATOR: Her tail spoke before she could, as every good appendage could.

ERICA HARRISON: When she's a kid, all the people around her really celebrate her tail, but when she becomes a teenager people start to think she's a bit of a freak.

So this is the main character here, getting teased on the bus for her tail.

FILM CHARACTER: It's gross.

What is it is, anyhow?

ERICA HARRISON: It's a parable about learning to embrace the things that make you unique.

Often the things that make us different are the things that actually make us wonderful and can bring us a lot of joy.

It's also a story about resilience and overcoming darkness.

MONIQUE SCHAFTER: A real life journey Erica went on while writing A Cautionary Tail, after a near fatal motorbike accident.

ERICA HARRISON: I didn't actually walk for six months and it was one of the darkest times of my life.

I spent a lot of time on my couch, way too much time on my couch after the accident, and for me it was a way of escaping to this wonderful, magical world where anything was possible.

We could become a zillion things.

(Excerpt from A Cautionary Tail)

FILM NARRATOR: A snake or dragon without wings.

MONIQUE SCHAFTER: Erica brought her story to life with close friend and animator Simon Rippingale.

SIMON RIPPINGALE: Everything you see is real, apart from the characters. So the characters in the film are generated in 3D and animated in Myer and everything else is miniature.

On the front here, they're all actually individually made bricks.

We initially had one house and then I said to the guys, "Look, I really think we need two more" and they looked at me like, "I'm going to kill you now".

I was really keen to use real, organic materials wherever I could so this is all paperbark from a paperbark tree just glued on.

And the grass on the set, this was real grass, so we grew grass on a tray.

MONIQUE SCHAFTER: The animation has been embraced every step of the way.

Attracting the talents of Cate Blanchett, David Wenham, and Barry Otto and raising more than $50,000 through a crowd funding campaign.

DOCTOR IN FILM: Congrats, nice job.

ERICA HARRISON: Yeah, it was really incredible for me to have, you know, such a wonderful cast on board.

SIMON RIPPINGALE: I didn't know what it was going to be like, you know, directing Cate Blanchett. That was a bit nerve wracking.

She just loved the story and because she's got kids herself she thought it was a great thing to get involved in.

CATE BLANCHETT NARRATING: Then, as the storm broke open wide, she felt the sun and rain collide in great warm drops upon her face. And something curious took place.

MONIQUE SCHAFTER: Australia has an impressive track record in animated short film making, with the The Lost Thing, starring Tim Minchin, and Harvie Krumpet, narrated by Geoffrey Rush, both going on to win Academy Awards.

SIMON RIPPINGALE: People like Adam Elliot is definitely inspiring for me. That's one of the reasons I wanted to do the thing in the first place. I loved his work.

MONIQUE SCHAFTER: Now four years since Erica Harrison began writing a poem about a girl born with a tail, A Cautionary Tail is making its worldwide premier at Flickerfest, Australia's only Academy Award accredited international short film festival.

BRONWYN KIDD, FLICKERFEST DIRECTOR: It means that film makers who are accepted or get into the festival and go for those awards and win those awards can actually end up being nominated for an Academy Award.

I loved the film instantly. I love the characters, I like it was a bit quirky and whimsical and just beautifully really realised.

MONIQUE SCHAFTER: Wherever this film takes them, the film makers are chuffed to have made it this far.

SIMON RIPPINGALE: This is definitely the fun end of the process. You work so hard and to be at a festival and see lots of other people's films as well is really inspiring.

ERICA HARRISON: I shed a little tear the first time I saw it. It was such a long journey for me, a really long journey, and it was really hard and I feel like, so happy that something positive has been able to come out of it.

CATE BLANCHETT NARRATING: It shifts and stretches, finds its shape, then twists and turns, tries to escape, until its perfect coil uncurled, a tail unfolds into the world.